Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
4
And it came about that the owners no longer worked on their farms. They farmed on paper; and they forgot the
land, the smell, the feel of it, and remembered only that they owned it, remembered only what they gained and
lost by it
.
—John Steinbeck,
The Grapes of Wrath
We're no longer in the farming business. . . . [W]e sell a branded line of products
.
—Tom Loveless, senior vice president of Fresh Express's parent company,
Performance Foods, in the
Los Angeles Times
, August 19, 2002
Like real estate, growing vegetables and fruit is all about location, location, location. Ever been to Iowa in
the summer, when the hot, dry winds sweep across the almost treeless landscape? Several weather-produ-
cing systems collide here in the center of the corn belt, often producing late spring freezes and scorching
summers, with a dash of drought, flood, hail, and tornadoes, and early, frigidly cold winters. The Iowa cli-
mate is favorable for the tall prairie grass habitat that dominated the land before the pioneers came.
“Until the rise of factory pig farms in the state, diversified farms dotted the Iowa landscape,” according
to Brother Dave Andrews, a senior representative for Food & Water Watch and the former executive director
of the National Catholic Rural Life Conference, which is located in Des Moines. Andrews says that Iowa's
weather and countryside are especially suitable for small livestock farms. Corn, a warm-season grass, grows
well in the state's hot summers, and it was sustainable when livestock farms were small enough for farmers
to use the animal manure for growing their own grain to feed their livestock.
“Sixty years ago, Iowa was almost self-sufficient, with most farms growing livestock, vegetables, and
fruit. But by the 1970s, as the grocery chains moved in, farmers couldn't compete with produce grown in
California,” says Andrews.
The same was true in other states across the country before interstate highways, diesel-fueled trucks, and
chain grocery stores changed both the economics of the food system and expectations at the dinner table.
Prior to World War II even Montana had the infrastructure to be self-sufficient, growing 70 percent of the
food consumed in the state—a range of fruits, vegetables, and livestock. Two hundred canneries, mills, dair-
ies, and slaughterhouses employed four hundred people across the state in 1947, before refrigeration and
freezing made it possible to haul fresh and frozen produce from California.
In contrast to Iowa and Montana, California's fertile soil, warm climate, and river water made California
a produce superstar. Historian Steven Stoll says that these environmental attributes gave the arid valleys and
isolated coastal plains of the state a “natural advantage” for producing fruits and vegetables. In 1880, after
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